(FF, Atlantis)
Of the kids today raised on cartoons and adopting surrealism, Noel's slightness is a psychic mess, more pollution than collage, tinged with repression. The shadow of a plane is the specter haunting here, but throughout is an "offness" that is more motion sickness than fear. Like Gertrude Abercrombie, or Goodnight Moon, an unease in desolate scenes in omnipresent sourceless light. Or Ken Price's drawings, his own harsh light of LA, ominous in shadows looking like oil, a lack of light which threatened to become physical thing, ink, creep from the cracks, precipitate from the air, cover everything. Noel's light too, toxic, the haze as permanent fixture, everything feeling smogged, poisoned. Pollution as repression, spectacular sunsets, and black oil beneath feet. The 9/11 in everyone's bedroom.
See too: Gertrude Abercrombie at Karma